Crossword Writes Its Next Chapter of Growth

For over three decades, Crossword Bookstores has shaped India’s reading culture, growing from its first Mumbai store in 1992 to 133 stores across 40 cities. In this exclusive interaction, Nidhi Gupta, Director, Crossword Bookstores, shares insights into the brand’s entrepreneurial journey, franchise-led expansion, technology adoption, evolving customer preferences and its vision for the future of organised book retail in India.

Founded in 1992, what inspired Crossword’s creation, and how does its founding vision continue to shape the business?

Crossword was founded with a simple belief that books should be more accessible and reading should be part of everyday life. The idea was never just to create a place to buy books, but a space where people could browse, discover authors and ideas and spend time around books.

That philosophy continues to shape Crossword today. The way people discover and consume content has changed enormously, but our role remains much the same: to make books easier to discover and to nurture a culture of reading.

Crossword has grown to 133 stores across 40 cities. What key milestones and strategies drove this growth?

A large part of our growth has come from staying relevant as the Indian reader and retail landscape have changed. We have expanded into new cities, strengthened the experience inside our stores and broadened the assortment beyond books into stationery, toys, games and gifting.

Through all this growth, the central question has remained the same: what will make someone want to walk into a Crossword, spend time there and come back?

The significance of the 20th edition of the Crossword Book Awards and its impact on India's literary landscape.

The 20th edition is a very special milestone for us. The Crossword Book Awards began in 1998 with a single award and today recognise writing across ten categories.

Over the years, the Awards have introduced readers to remarkable books and voices and have grown alongside Indian publishing itself. For us, the responsibility is not only to sell books but also to help good writing get recognised and discovered. The 20th edition is therefore both a celebration of what the Awards have achieved and a commitment to what they should continue to stand for.

How has franchising contributed to Crossword’s expansion and helped the brand enter new markets?

Franchising allows us to combine Crossword's brand, systems and retail experience with a partner's understanding of the local market.

India is not one homogeneous retail market. Reading habits, customer profiles and even the way people use a bookstore can vary considerably from one city to another. Having strong local partners helps us understand those nuances while maintaining the consistency of the Crossword experience. It has allowed us to enter new markets faster and more effectively.

What investment, store size, manpower and partner qualities does Crossword require from prospective franchisees?

The investment varies depending on the city, location, store size and format, so we evaluate each opportunity individually.

More important than capital alone is the partner. We look for people who understand their local market, are operationally disciplined and are prepared to be actively involved in the business. Retail requires attention to detail every day. We also want partners who genuinely believe in the idea of building a bookstore as a place for discovery and community, rather than looking at it purely as another retail format.

How does Crossword differentiate itself amid e-commerce and digital platforms while keeping customers returning to stores?

The biggest advantage of a physical bookstore is discovery.

Online, you often search for something you already know you want. In a bookstore, you can walk in looking for one book and walk out having discovered three others. You see covers, pick up books, read a few pages, speak to a bookseller or notice something on a table that you may never have searched for online.

Our curation, our teams and experiences such as author events and children's activities all contribute to that sense of discovery. That is very difficult to replicate on a screen.

How is Crossword leveraging AI and digital technologies to enhance customer experience and support franchise operations?

We are becoming increasingly data-led in the way we run the business. Technology helps us understand what is selling, where it is selling and how customer preferences differ across markets, which in turn improves assortment and inventory decisions.

AI opens up further possibilities in areas such as forecasting, recommendations, training and customer insights, and these are areas we continue to explore. But bookselling is ultimately a very human business. Technology should make our teams better informed and more responsive; it should not replace the judgement, conversation and personal recommendation that make a good bookstore special.

How important are author interactions, children’s activities, book launches and events in driving store engagement and performance?

They are extremely important because a bookstore should give people reasons to return even when they have not come in with a specific purchase in mind.

An author conversation, a children's storytelling session or a book launch turns the store into a place where people meet, exchange ideas and discover something new. It also introduces books and authors to readers who may not otherwise have encountered them. For us, community has always been a natural extension of bookselling.

What operational, marketing, technology and training support does Crossword provide franchise partners for sustainable profitability?

We work closely with franchise partners across store planning, merchandising, assortment, inventory, operations, marketing, technology and training.

We provide the systems and brand framework needed to deliver a consistent Crossword experience, while data helps both us and the partner understand store performance and customer behaviour. At the same time, some of the best insights come from our franchise partners because they are closest to their local customer. We see it very much as a long-term partnership rather than simply a franchise relationship.

What is Crossword’s expansion roadmap, and which markets and store formats offer the biggest opportunities ahead?

There is significant opportunity for physical bookstores in India, particularly as new urban centres and retail catchments develop. Our focus is on expanding sustainably across both established and emerging markets.

Expansion for us is not simply about adding stores. We want to keep improving what happens inside those stores: better curation, stronger events and communities, more relevant non-book categories and a closer connection between our physical and digital channels.

Crossword remains the place where readers come to discover what they want to read next.